Kill or be Killed

Only the foolish would admit to being on the Most Wanted list, or to having Death Marks on all of the civilized systems in the Galaxy. Republic or otherwise, I've got them. Or the equivalent. Depending on who you are and where you are, they're considered a honour. But now, with who I am, I'd rather decline. But I have no choice. The past won't change. I was, then and will always be who I am.

Who I am... Who am I? Those are questions I ask... However, the answers died with the part of me that died when the mirror of my soul broke.

When I was a little girl, I had parents, just like every other child in my clan. I had a mother, and I had a father. I had a sibling. Normally, that meant that I was a lucky child, with a family.

But sometimes, now that I look back on it, I'd rather had not had a family, if what I then thought was normal isn't.

My father once took my sister and me to see a sight that we'd never seen before, one that Grania had hoped we'd never see.

Ships, with other people. People who weren't Witches, or slave mates, or Nightsisters.

People. Who could leave whenever and go wherever they wanted.

Tanneth was terrified, she couldn't understand. Why would these people not want to stay? What was it?

Rukka, my father, had once been such a trader. Unfortunately for him, he'd ignored the wise counsel of the ship's captain and wandered off, fascinated by the low gravity, the land around him. It cost him his freedom.

Grania, a Nightsister who had supposedly repented and cleansed herself, used the Night spells to capture him. She had been fascinated by his looks and colouring. Rukka was a Firrerreo, with golden skin, emerald green eyes, and a mane of copper and gold, striped. His pointed teeth were healthy and showed no signs of disease. Grania, the creature who gave birth to Tanneth and me, had hoped that he would enable her to give birth to sons with his colouring. She had wanted nothing more than to sell them.

I always hated her, from the day I realized that she didn't want us. Don't get me wrong, the other Witches would have been perfectly happy to have us, but like I said, Grania was a Nightsister, concerned only with herself.

My hatred of her planted a dark seed in the shadowed garden of my soul. That seed gave birth to a dark and twisted flower, one that consumed my entire being, until I was darker than nights with no moons.

That, and the death of Tanneth, I believe was the reason for what happened later.

The night of our twentieth Lifeday, Grania decided to try and turn Tanneth into a Nightsister. Due to the lack of proper training, Tanneth's mind was destroyed. Grania sent Dark lightning towards her, but she didn't die until I found her, curled up against the cold stones of the cliffs. It was snowing, I remember, and she was vomiting blood.

Those are the only details I can honestly say I can remember clearly. Tanneth died a few moments after I picked up her body. To this day, I still don't know what I did with her body.

Almost a year later, I disobeyed the Clan Council and killed in cold blood. I was exiled for thirty years; my DNA reengineered so that I couldn't die, for my DNA constantly renewed itself, in a way that my body never decayed, never got sick. If I was cut, it would be gone the next day.

It was hellish. To live virtually forever, unless I had the strength of nerve to kill myself and get the never-ending nightmare over.

Fortunately, I was either too weak to take the coward's way out, or I had something in me that I'd never met.

But I wanted to meet it. It was stronger than I was, more able to take charge. As odd as it might sound now, I was spineless on Dathomir as a child. Tanneth was the strong one, the one I could depend on. When she died... I lost my compass, my mirror, my crutch. I had to rely on myself, be my own mirror and compass.

I found a way off of Dathomir. But before I left, I was so consumed with anger and hatred that I annihilated my entire clan. Rukka was dead by that time, or I would have never destroyed Stone River.

I laughed as the entire clan perished. What little I remember of that day of destruction was the last clear thought I had for nearly a month. It was one of fear of what and who I was becoming.

I was becoming Grania.

I made my way off of my home, leaving all behind. I left my name, my guardian behind. I ran from it, terrified of what I'd done.

But what I'd done wasn't anything compared to what I would soon be doing.

I joined a small, not-well-known smuggler group called the Black Sidhe. It was appropriate. I started out a simple mechanic. Fixing basics, the easy stuff. Nothing really hard. Then, I found that if I used the spells... I could fix a great deal more that what I was given. Before long, the leader of the group noticed. I was given more expert work, and I was bunked with a new person. Before, I'd slept in the hangar bay. Now, I shared a room with Khanto Jeri, a semi-expert on explosives.

Not too long after that, we were raided by a small group called the Red Haze. This was long before the Hawkbat was even born. Probably before her parents even met.

I managed to disable one Hazer and decapitate another. Aravis, our best hacker, jokingly nicknamed me the "Mechanic with Teeth." The first part stuck. I had been going by the name of Nemo, which means "No name," but I adopted the name Mechanic. So I had a name.

Once I was fully competent of the workings of every ship in the group, I started learning the basics of what the Black Sidhe did.

It was more than a smuggler group, I quickly learned. If a criminal organization didn't want to get their hands dirty, they'd hire us, or someone like us to do their dirty work. We would be paid for terrorist work, assassination, hijacking, pirating, smuggling, grand theft, hacking... just about everything there was a law against, we would do for the right sum of money.

I learned quickly, and quite often, "Adaptation is the rule of Survival." Before terribly long, I, like most of the Black Sidhe, had Death Marks on my head, along with a substantial bounty.

I made more money than I knew what to do with. I've still got it. Some's tied up in investments I'd made back then. I've got some stock in that guy who makes those real nice Blas-Tech rifles. Back then, he was nothing really, just some Corellian who made decent blasters. Now... he's a rich Corellian who makes decent blasters. But I've got enough stashed on enough planets that if I totally liquidated, I could buy every planet in the Corporate Sector, and just about all of Coruscant.

But with that money came the ease of not thinking about what I was doing. I became the leader of the Black Sidhe, not officially, but I was the one who decided what we accepted and what we didn't. Sometimes... I accepted assignments that were worse than what we'd thought.

One of the worst jobs we'd ever done, I hesitated. My mind was struggling with the part of me that still fought the darkness. I was too deep. I accepted the job. We were paid to eradicate a building owned by our client's rival.

It was a hospital, with a foundling home attached.

We hid enough remote thermal detonators to instantly vaporize any living tissue upon detonation.

I wasn't the one to think of it. I didn't have the compassion anymore. It was all buried deep down under the emotional and mental armour I'd built.

Aravis thought of it. At first, I didn't want to listen. He was a hacker whom Jeri had been dating. I'd noticed a while back that she didn't always sleep in her bunk, but I'd ignored it. Although I was never happy when they locked me out of our room....

He had been the one to give me the now notorious neural interface that is linked to the Mechanic, even today. He'd given it to me when I was having trouble with my Basic. Back then, I was simply the new mechanic, bunked in the hangar, hired by the Rodian.

I later killed the Rodian. He'd always send me to represent the Black Sidhe with the real rep.

The idiot thought I was expendable, that he could always find another mechanic.

Dead wrong.

Hahahaha... Dead wrong. A pun. Me, making jokes.

About thirty-five years or so after I'd joined the Sidhe, a new face popped up, called the Hawkbat. She was with the Red Haze, and she gave it new life.

Red Haze became a household word, well known for its viciousness.

Far from being upset about competition like I should have been, I was pleased.

In a sick, morbid way, I was pleased. In the dark life I lived, it was kill or be killed. Maybe I would finally dance with my Death.

Don't get me wrong, I don't need to dance with Death anymore. I have too much to do, too many people who need me, and... something else. A new look on Life, perhaps.

But I didn't dance with Death this time. The first time I came mano a mano with the Hawkbat, the Red Haze had killed a Black Sidhe. It was a honour thing. Can't let Hazers kill Sidhe, it looks bad. So I went with a few members to this local cantina and had a real nice fight going on.

But one of my men decided he was going to be cocky about it and started crowing about how the Hawkbat and the Mechanic would kill each other, and he'd get the money.

We killed him.

We sometimes met after that. Not 'buddy buddy how's it going,' but more of a 'I see you, you see me, we won't kill each other today because we have better things to do' kind of thing.

She was a young thing, real young. Almost too young for doing what she did for my jaded taste. I watched out for her, not greasing her way or anything, but... just watching her back.

Not long before the Trade Federation got royally embarrassed by Naboo, I quit the Black Sidhe, became a semi-honest freighter pilot. I did some passenger work on the side. Although... I did keep my fingers on the pulse of the thriving smuggling trade as well...

After about a year of hauling cargo around, I got an interesting passenger.

It was the Hawkbat.

When I asked in the old smuggler's way for her to keep quiet, she knew what I was asking. I also knew to keep quiet. Those green eyes flashed a familiar fire, even without the mask.

I know that one day, my evils will find me, and I will pay, just as she will.

We go out occasionally and destroy a few cantinas, or she'll destroy the one I'm trying to be alone in, but we're not the bad girls we used to be. Sometimes, she'll sit across from me, drink stim tea. I'll have what I always have: a Mad Mrelf, and she'll ask whether or not I was the legendary pilot who, on a Mad Mrelf spree, destroyed the holovision tower on Nar Shaddaa. I'll smirk and say nothing. I know who did, but I promised I wouldn't say.

Like I said, we aren't the bad girls we used to be.

The Hawkbat became the Guardian of Stars, Sailor Asteroid.

The Mechanic became the Guardian of Creation and Destruction, Sailor Dathomir.

The very things we had run to, we were the Guardians of.

Ironic.

Sailor Dathomir, Senshi of Life and Justice.

The very things I had run from, I had to protect.

Redemption is Asteroid's gig... but I will never receive the redemption I seek.

But it's easier now. It's no longer "Kill... or be killed."

A notice appeared in the Coruscant Times four days after this recording:
A hospital on Selonia that was destroyed nearly thirty years ago has finally reopened its doors, not only to the ill and disabled, but to the foundling children of the Corellian Sector as well. A hospital spokesperson was quoted as saying, "An anonymous donor, whose incredible gift of forty million credits is responsible for this wonderful event, requested that not only the hospital, but the foundling home be rebuilt as well." The entire planet considers this anonymous donor to be a wonderful example of a charitable, caring being. The grand opening is scheduled for two standard weeks from now. Sailor Dathomir is rumoured to be attending.